


i feel like i'm drowning

by awakeanddreaming



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M, Mild Angst, Post Sochi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-13 04:44:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16010540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awakeanddreaming/pseuds/awakeanddreaming
Summary: After, he traced the contours of her with his fingers. Recommitting the feel of her to his memory.  Praying that she wouldn’t disappear. If he could touch her, feel her skin against his, he knew she was real. Even when everything felt surreal—like a Salvador Dali. Even though room around him was fading, stretching, washing away. But she was still there, vibrant as ever.





	i feel like i'm drowning

**Author's Note:**

> So, I have no idea what this is. Not in the typical I can't believe I'm writing about two ice dancers I've never met before, but in an honest I have no idea what this was meant to be. 
> 
> I wrote this months ago, before I discovered ao3, and it's just been chilling on my computer since. The original version is a bit darker--less angst and more soul destroying because I was just toying with my writing style. A few weeks ago I edited it to be this. 
> 
> Anyways, I am posting this now because why not? And I've been in the midst of a three day migraine from hell so I haven't been able to manage any new content for "that's what you get for waking up in vegas". So here is something different. 
> 
> Please enjoy some weird dream, semi angsty bullshit, that was really just an exersize in prose.
> 
>  
> 
> For those following my Vegas story hopefully I will have the next chapter in a day or two, once my brain fog decreases.

It’s all in the eyes. He always believed you could learn everything you needed to know about a person by looking into their eyes. Hers were green, gorgeous green. She told him once they were sea green, but that was too gentle. He saw the turbulent mixing of colours—a storm churning up the ocean floor stirring blues, greens and sandy browns. Their surface ever changing with her moods. As beautiful, dangerous and unpredictable as the sea; the eyes reflected the woman. A woman who _almost_ always knew what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to reach out and grab it— pulling you into her depths, swallowing you whole, never to resurface.

Looking into those eyes too long was like a riptide, dragging you below, holding you under. But he was already a drowned man.She was the sea and he had died in her, he no longer needed to come up for air.

After he was good and drowned, she smiled, blinked, and rolled over in the bed. Allowing him to breathe again—resurrecting him. He had been somewhere else, and she had woken him to this moment. She knew how to make sure she had his attention, always had. It didn’t matter how many years had passed, with her he was still the same lovestruck teenager he had been their first time. Before she understood the hold she had on him. God, he loved her. Even though it had taken him a long time to admit it.

She rolled herself out of the bed and shrugged out of his t-shirt tossing it at him. Another thing she did just to get his attention. He followed the fluid lines of her body with his eyes. The curve of her spine, the gentle dip in her lower back that formed two perfect dimples, and then disappeared under black lace. The memories of the last time he had her still lingered on him. The saltiness of her lips on his—mixed with the taste of her mint toothpaste. The heat of her bare skin. His gaze caught on the constellations of freckles he liked to trace with his fingers, mapping out her body.  A sailor using the stars to find his way. He sighed audibly, looking at her, longing to recreate those moments.

 “Why do you have to torture me like this?”

“Torture you?” She smiled wryly and glided over to the bed. As fluid as water.

Washing over him like the gentle ripple of a wave against shore, she straddled his waist. Running her hands up his bare chest, the pads of her fingers just barely touching him. Like always they were cold, while the rest of her was warm. He could feel his skin prickling under her touch and he was drowning all over again.

He held his breath, waiting for her to make her move. Knowing exactly what she was doing and letting her anyways.

Lowering her body over him, hovering so she was almost touching him. Just enough for him to feel her heat. Her dark hair draped around their faces—a curtain between them and the room. There was nothing but her. He was pulled under again, lost at sea in her eyes. So intoxicated by her it was dizzying.

“This is torture,” she whispered. Her lips so close to his that he could feel the shape of her words more than he could hear them. Then, twining her fingers in his hair she kissed him. Gentle at first, then so deeply he could taste the salt water that ran through her veins. And then with a toss of her hair, she climbed off. Leaving him burning for her.

This was something she loved to do. Get just close enough and leave him hanging. Building the anticipation for later. He would never admit he loved it too. And she’d get it back as good as she gave it.

“Come back to bed,” he moaned as she slipped on a robe that had been slung over a chair.

“Coffee.” Was all she said as she disappeared out the bedroom door. Leaving him nothing to do but long for her touch.

She returned with two mugs. Black for him and what ever the hell she decided was her coffee concoction of the week for herself—a misto something or other she said. Smiling she breathed in the aroma. She had always told him—even before she started drinking coffee—that the smell alone was enough to wake her up.

She perched on the end of the bed, near his feet, her legs tucked up beneath her.

“Talk,” it sounded like a question, but he knew it was a command.

“About what?” He sipped his coffee and the warmth spread quickly through him. He hadn’t realized he was cold, even his lungs were chilled.

Must be from all the drowning.

“Anything, everything, nothing. I just like to hear your voice.”

It had been a long while since they had really, truly had a conversation. Sure, they saw each other often and they talked and joked—but it was never enough. Not deep enough, meaningful enough, never close enough. Just perfunctory speech. And even though it was never enough, after everything they’d put themselves through it felt like too much half the time. Ever since they had left each other with the shattered remains of half functioning hearts.

She was trying to let him back in—tossing a life preserver. Didn’t she know he was already good and drowned? He was hers as long as she’d take him back. Even though he wasn’t sure he deserved to be taken back.

“Even when I sing?” He joked.

“Only when it’s off key. I can’t let anyone know you’re better than me.”

Her laugh washed over him, almost as deep as her eyes and just as intoxicating. It was the first thing he noticed about her when they met as kids. Her laugh had always been big, powerful, genuine and full of her spirit. He used to think it was too big for such a small girl, but as they got older he learned how vast she truly was. The spirit of water inhabiting the body of a girl.

He did as she asked, and he talked. And talked. It was like they were in high school again. Before she had found the strength in her voice. When she preferred to let him do the talking, while she watched the shape of his lips, the flicker of his eyes, the tone, his pacing. Fully absorbing every word, caching them in the depths of her mind like sunken treasure, to be found again only when she needed.

When she finally spoke he got so lost in her that he missed what she was saying but loved every word anyways. Always had. Her words were always carefully chosen, cool and collected, articulate and well thought out—except with him. She allowed him in, allowed him to hear her thoughts. However strange, disjointed and ever changing they might be. Ebbing and flowing like the tide. It was a part of her that was all his and no one else’s. And he selfishly loved that. Always wanted to keep her close, have all of her to himself. Except for recently.

He looked around the room, everything was clean, white, and modern but she was the only colour he needed. She was the only thing he had ever needed. Only, he worried it had taken him too long to realize it.

She cocked her head and looked at him, a little like a bird. He realized he had abruptly stopped talking and was staring at her.

“What’s up, babe?” She asked, running her hand over his leg.

He faltered for a second, taken aback. She didn’t call him babe. Once upon a time he’d used it as a pet name for her but not for a while—since well before they lost—each other and everything else. It threw him. Suddenly, he felt like he was floating in a dream. He could barely remember the world outside this room. Nothing else existed outside this moment.

“This seems too perfect.”

She laughed. “No such thing as too perfect.”

“You are.”

“That is far from true,” she laughed again, “but still appreciated.” She winked.

No sooner than she had put their coffee cups aside were they a tangle of bodies under the sheets. She pushed him down on the bed and kissed him like it might be the last time—for all he knew it might be. So, he kissed her back fiercely, biting at her bottom lip. He couldn’t breathe for wanting her, but it didn’t mater his lungs were already filled with water, he didn’t need to breathe anymore.

He pushed the robe off her shoulders so that it still hung on her arms but exposed her bare chest. He traced the freckles along her collar bone with his mouth, his tongue, following them like a map to between her breasts. She sighed into his kisses, arching her back and pushing her chest into him. Craving more. Like she always did. Wanting more than he could possibly give her. But now, now he would try. He would give her the whole ocean if he could.

And when he finally thrust inside her they were connected once again. Two bodies working as one—like in a dance. Even their hearts beat in perfect sync. There was nothing else, not the last year or two years or four, no pain, no surgeries, no reckless actions that could derail everything. Nothing else mattered—in this moment they were together. As they always should have been.

After their first time—so many years ago, when they had no idea what it all meant— she had told him that she had never understood the meaning of completeness until that moment. Awkward and giggly and imperfect as it had been—she had told him it had felt like everything.

He had been nineteen and stupid then and did not entirely share her sentimentality. But he thought he understood her now. At eighteen she had more knowledge of the world, of her own feelings and body then he may ever have.

After, he traced the contours of her with his fingers. Recommitting the feel of her to his memory.  Praying that she wouldn’t disappear. If he could touch her, feel her skin against his, he knew she was real. Even when everything felt surreal—like a Salvador Dali. Even though room around him was fading, stretching, washing away. But she was still there, vibrant as ever.

She held his face in her hands—even colder than they were before—they almost stung against his skin. She kissed him, one last time. Pulling away only enough to whisper against his lips.

“Remember, you can have everything you want.” She paused. “Stop being afraid of drowning.”

And then she burst open, turning into water and flooding over him. Washing away the room, pulling him under until all the air was forced from his lungs.

***

He wakes in a cold sweat. Skin sticking to the sheets, gasping for air. He sucks in a sharp breath. It is no use; his lungs won’t fill. His chest feels constricted, pressed from the outside. His breathe is too fast or his heart is too slow—or maybe it is the opposite and his heart is pounding and it’s his lungs that just can’t catch up. They can’t get enough oxygen to his blood.

He isn’t drowning anymore but he still can’t breathe. Apparently, he can breathe better underwater. Or maybe he just breathes better with her, even when she is just a dream. He feels dizzy and disoriented.

There is a body in the bed next to him, but it’s the wrong one. Blonde hair instead of brown, and he knows, even behind closed lids, blue eyes instead of green. And he feels like shit for wanting to slip back into a dream with _her_. A dream that felt more like a memory. Or maybe hundreds of fragments of memories, made over nearly two decades, pieced together to create one perfect morning. He wants her. He needs her. But he can’t have her. They broke each other and then he ran away and fell apart. Tiny little pieces of a whole, floating away and sinking into the sea—a shipwreck.  

And even if he could, there is still a woman in his bed who isn’t her. She is wonderful and supportive and beautiful and probably perfect for him. She doesn’t drown him and bring him back to the brink just to do it all over again.

Careful not to wake the woman in bed next to him—because he doesn’t want her right now, and he hates himself for feeling that—he slowly peels himself from the bed. His head is buzzing, his limbs feel heavy and he can smell the stale beer that oozing from his pores.

"Scott?" She grumbles from under the covers, eyes still closed—thank god, he doesn't think he could look into her eyes right now.

"Kait, it's late still. Go back to sleep." He manages, sounding slightly harsher than he meant to. But blessedly, she groans, rolls over and drifts back to sleep—as if she were never truly awake.

 

He stands under the warm stream of the shower, but still feels a chill run through him. He lets the water run over his face, fills his mouth with it. With the steady spray of water all around him he lets his mind drift back to the dream. To her.

He allows himself to remember the feel of her lips against his. The taste of her skin under his tongue. The warmth of being buried inside her, contrasted by the cool of her hands running over his body until the find his hair and pull. Drowning under her gaze.

Surrounded by the water of the shower it's almost as if he can feel her with him. He can see her clearly in his mind, her hand clasped tightly in his. Holding onto her as long as he could has always been all he's ever wanted. He had let her go, but if he can make his way back to her and hold her hand again, he will never let go. She is it for him. 

 _Tessa._ His Tessa. 

Thinking of her, he can finally breathe again. 

 

 

 


End file.
